


a perfect circle

by voltaires



Category: Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Genre: M/M, Unhealthy Relationships, arson but it's thematic, i wrote this two years ago for my 10th grade english class thanks ms. davis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 13:18:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11760711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltaires/pseuds/voltaires
Summary: It was with sadness, almost, that Beatty realized howcarefulMontag had thought was being, howsubtle. As though Beatty wouldn't notice Mildred’s widening eyes as she felt the book behind that pillow; as though he hadn't spent that entire evening tugging and twisting at the strings that held Montag together and creating an entirely new puppet.





	a perfect circle

It seemed to take a lifetime to fall apart.

Beatty had pieced together what was happening from the moment Montag had said those words, had said “Once upon a time...” so hesitantly, curiosity tinging his voice for the first time since Beatty had known him. He’d seen the way Montag’s eyes lingered on each book he burned, seen the flames flicker and die in his dark eyes, swallowing the light like a black hole, seen his subtle shift from the mindless following of orders to the serious questioning of everything he’d been taught, the rebirth of a long-forgotten childhood anomaly like a phoenix poking its head out of the ashes for the first time.

So Beatty waited.

And he watched.

The pieces seemed to fall into place now, as they stood facing each other in the open heat of Montag’s crumbling house. Rather than being fearful, Beatty felt an immense satisfaction stir in his chest at the sight of Montag hoisting the flamethrower up on one hip to aim it at him; it was as if the universe was patting him on the back: _Yes, Captain, you’ve finished the painting and now it’s time to hang it on the wall! Reap the rewards of your harvest, every seed you’ve planted bears a ripe fruit!_

Montag had seemed different the night they’d burned that woman, that damned martyr in a fight that would never be won -- he was slow, eyes pausing on each book at it was swallowed in a blaze; it had been a mess -- the smoke clouded Beatty’s vision and he blinked in a daze, and between the smog and the tears that blurred his view he saw a barrage of books tumbling onto Montag, and he saw the way Montag’s fingers ghosted over the cover of a small green one, and he saw the way they curled around it and shoved it underneath his sweating armpit, and he saw the way Montag turned, a wild panic in his eyes, tense as he checked that no one had caught him and he felt the corners of his lips quirk up just a hair and he thought, _So it begins_.

He knew how to twist the knife; it was a skill Beatty had prided himself on as he honed it: the ability to slither in and out of people’s lives with the ease of a snake, to don a new mask each time and watch as they tried to disassemble his fabricated personality; it was almost like a game, really, to test his own limits; he realized, eventually, that once one ran out of worthy opponents, they ended up playing chess against themselves.

So he toppled himself as the king, watched himself fall from grace in Montag’s eyes as he needled and prodded and worked his way into every thought, always leaping two steps ahead in this strange dance between them, staring down the barrel of the flamethrower like it would bring him to salvation; while he jeered, “He thinks he’s the Lord of all Creation!” a mantra spun itself in his head like a stuck record: _absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute power corrupts absolutely, absolute.._.

It was with sadness, almost, that Beatty realized how _careful_ Montag had thought was being, how _subtle_. As though Beatty wouldn't notice Mildred’s widening eyes as she felt the book behind that pillow; as though he hadn't spent that entire evening tugging and twisting at the strings that held Montag together and creating an entirely new puppet.

Now, as Montag snarled at him, Beatty felt even sorrier for the both of them. He wished, not for the first time, that his heart would stop threatening to beat itself out of his chest every time he so much as thought of telling Montag the truth. That it had been him the whole time, prodding and prodding and prodding, ever so slightly nudging Montag closer to the edge; it was in human nature to rebel, after all, as rebellion was borne from curiosity and Montag had enough of that to spare; so much that it bubbled at his edges and sloshed over the sides, even now as he held Beatty’s life in his hands, his eyes were lit up with something that was not fire, but wondering: _How far would he go?_ they both thought, a moment that passed silently between them.

Quite far, it seemed. He had dragged Mildred into it, after all; watching her speed off in that beetle-taxi, knowing she was urging the driver to push the speed just to feel anything besides the buzzing in her head, Beatty felt a jolt in his perfect facade for just a second, like pressing alcohol to an open wound.

He had _been_ Montag before, had fallen in love with books and held them tight to his chest no matter the cost; and he convinced himself that he had loved Montag more, and that was why he _had_ to bring him into it, because that was what love was, wasn't it?

 _Youth is only a state of mind,_ he thought, regarding Montag with mingled sorrow and pride; he saw it reflected in Montag’s face as he realized Mildred had turned him in, the way he’d felt so many years before, back when he had the nerve and the recklessness to want to put everything in jeopardy. The awful sinking in his chest as he woke up alone, the Beetle missing, and he waited for hours, hope turning to dread turning to a pit of anger that bloomed from within and fed on his despair.

 _Mildred is never coming back!_ He wanted to yell at Montag, whose bottom lip was worried between his teeth as he sized Beatty up. _They’re never coming back, they’ll never understand! Montag, you brilliant man…_

“Montag, you idiot, Montag, you damn fool…”

_You were better than me, Montag, because I knew what was right and I refused to help, I’ve been drowning myself in self-pity for so long but you don’t hesitate, you consume and the void expands to accommodate…_

He struck a blow to Montag’s head, watched the green bullet clatter to the scorched earth, and he snatched it up, knowing this was the final straw. Well aware that if Montag truly was his foil, then he would never let someone get hurt because he had dragged them into it.

The safety was switched on. Beatty, very suddenly, felt as though he had been plunged underwater; the air thickened, he moved slowly, the grin of a feral cat spreading over his features.

“That’s one way to get an audience,” he said as the blood rushed in his ears; his pulse felt like a clock sped up, reminding him of the precious few seconds he had left. He was high on the adrenaline, losing focus as he pushed his pins further into Montag, breathlessly whittling off Shakespeare, and he felt a small stab of betrayal as he realized Montag was never going to get it, despite his own lack of subtlety; he was never going to understand that Beatty had consumed books like they gave him breath, that it was always Beatty nudging him in that direction, and he wondered, briefly, if he had made the right choice with Montag -- if Montag couldn’t grasp this, how was he supposed to grasp the miracles he had yet to behold? He shoved that thought down; Montag was all he had left.

“We never burned _right_ ,” said Montag, his voice hoarse.

 _I know_ , thought Beatty, but he did not say that. Instead, he smiled his most charming smile, took a step closer to Montag, and said, “Hand it over, Guy,” knowing that he would not. The hand outstretched between them was a test, and for a split second, the world stood still as Montag’s eyes flickered to his face, brow furrowed slightly, sweat dripping off of both of them, and he thought Montag wouldn’t do it after all.

Then he was bathed in the fire of Hell, flailing in the pit which he had dug.

**Author's Note:**

> in my 10th grade english class we had an assignment that (i think) was to either reimagine an existing scene from f451 or write our own scene that could fit in the novel at some point and this was what i came up with. i thought i was really sticking it to my english teacher by making beatty gay but she didn’t care.


End file.
